Queenie Chan

Artist’s Statement

As a practitioner of the 'ninth art' (comic strips), I am interested in bringing the narrative of comics - rather than just the art of comics - into art galleries. My approach makes me unusual among comic book artists, but I have always considered myself a 'writer who draws.' As such, I come with a unique viewpoint in how I regard my art, and the place art has in my work.

I'm interested in stories, and the ideas, symbols, archetypes and social critique that can exist in them. Comics involve art, but is really a medium for story-telling; the essence of the form is best expressed through sequential arrangement of a series of images and a blend of words and pictures. What is the best way to bring this into a gallery space? How can one distil the base ideas of a narrative into a form that is digestible on a gallery wall? These are all questions I want to ask.

Based in Sydney, Australia, I have been published both nationally and internationally, and had my work translated into multiple languages. I also run a start-up company called 'The BentoNet,' which has the goal of being an infinite bookshelf for independent book stores.

Biography

Queenie Chan was born in Hong Kong in 1980, and was an avid fan of Japanese comics and animation from early on. As she was growing up, she would spend her spare time imagining alternate characters and scenarios to her favourite stories. From then onwards, a lifetime of storytelling was born.

When she was six years old, her family migrated to Australia, where she settled in Sydney's inner west suburbs. As a teenager, she never had much interest in drawing, until a miraculous flowering occurred when she was seventeen. Midway through reading a samurai manga, she realised that she could write and draw her own stories.

Drawing manga for a living was unthinkable for a girl from a traditional Chinese family, so she went to UNSW to acquire a degree in Information Systems. However, the dot com bust in 2002 steered her away from a lifetime of corporate keyboard pushing. With IT jobs evaporating, she turned to drawing manga, and by luck was discovered by an American manga publisher called TOKYOPOP in 2004.

She went on to produce a manga called “The Dreaming”, which was successful and translated into multiple languages. After that, she worked as an illustrator for best-selling author Dean Koontz on his “Odd Thomas” series, and with Australian fantasy author Kylie Chan on “Small Shen”. Currently, she has just finished writing and drawing her own fairytale-inspired story “Fabled Kingdom”, and is working on a number of future projects.

Exhibitions

2016 Celebration! - The Sydney Comics Guild @ ArtSHINE Gallery

2017 Exhibited with Chatswood Library as part of Comic Con-versation Library Festival
2017 Wrote and illustrated “Fabled Kingdom” v3
2016 Exhibited in “Comix Creatrix” with Liverpool Library as part of Comic Con-versation Library Festival
2016 Exhibited in “Celebrations” with ArtSHINE Gallery with the Sydney Comics Guild
2016 Wrote and illustrated short story “The Book that Made Me” with publisher Walker Books
2016 Illustrated “Manga Vision: Cultural and Communication Perspectives” with publisher Monash University and Sarah Pasfield-Neofitou and Cathy Sell
2015 Wrote and illustrated “Fabled Kingdom” v2
2014 Wrote and illustrated “Fabled Kingdom” v1
2013 Wrote and illustrated “Short Ghost Stories: The Man with the Axe in his Back”
2013 Adapted and illustrated the poem “The Rooster” with Cordie Poetry Review and Omar bin Musa
2012 Wrote and illustrated short story “We are the Pickwicks” with the Cordite Poetry Review
2012 Adapted and Illustrated “Small Shen” with publisher Harper Collins and Kylie Chan
2011 Wrote and illustrated “Queenie Chan: Short Stories 2000-2010”
2011 Illustrated “House of Odd” with publisher Del Rey and Dean Koontz
2010 Wrote and illustrated “The Dreaming: Perfect Collection” with publisher TOKYOPOP
2009 Wrote and illustrated short story “Forget-Me-Not” with publisher Yen Press in Yen Plus Magazine
2009 Illustrated “Odd is on our Side” with publisher Del Rey and Dean Koontz
2009 Illustrated “Boy's Book of Positive Quotations” with publisher Fairview Press
2008 Co-wrote and illustrated “In Odd We Trust” with publisher Del Rey and Dean Koontz
2007 Wrote and illustrated “The Dreaming” v3 with publisher TOKYOPOP
2006 Wrote and illustrated “The Dreaming” v2 with publisher TOKYOPOP
2005 Wrote and illustrated “The Dreaming” v1 with publisher TOKYOPOP
2002 Graduated with a degree in Information Systems from UNSW